"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the
animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel
nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest
lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."
Samuel Adams, (1722-1803)

Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Fox & Friends segment warned on Tuesday that President
Barack Obama’s administration was set to enact a ban on doughnut
sprinkles, which meant that the government could take control of where
you live and work next. In a report
that seemed to have no actual news value other than to rile up readers
during the holiday season, Breitbart asserted just days before Christmas
that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had moved to “ban cake” and
“donut ‘sprinkles’.”“Although the amount of trans fats Americans consume has declined
significantly in recent years, the FDA’s quest to completely eliminate a
particular type of trans fat threatens to eliminate the noble
‘sprinkle,’ used to decorate holiday treats and donuts,” the Breitbart
report said. “Even a small amount of joy is suspect in the FDA’s brave,
new, food-monitored world.”It’s true that the FDA took steps in 2013 to phase out the sale of artificial trans fats. And the Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that moving forward with a complete ban could prevent as many as 7,000 deaths and 20,000 coronary events each year. Manufacturers like popcorn maker Redenbacher’s have responded by reformulating their foods to remove trace amounts of trans fats.In fact, the Paulaur Corporation has already removed trans fats from its line of sprinkles by using a non hydrogenated palm oil.But Fox News host Clayton Morris told viewers on Tuesday that they
would have to “say goodbye to your favorite sprinkled doughnut.”“They’re getting rid of doughnuts like these,” Morris explained while
hold a plate of pastries. “Doesn’t the FDA have more important things
to do than regulate sprinkles?”“Food police” opponent Jayson Lusk argued that there was no need to
ban trans fats because food companies had already reduced the amount
that was used because of new labeling laws. “What it is also saying to people is, ‘You’re just not responsible,
right?’” Morris opined. “If you can’t eat one of these every other day,
and you know that you’re going to have some other health issues if
you’re eating doughnuts, that’s the main part of your diet, that’s
probably going to have some issues, what the government is saying is,
‘Look, you’re not responsible for your own health so we’re going to step
in and make sure we’re going to be responsible for you.’”“You know, there’s a tendency to look at this policy and say, ‘What’s
the big deal? You know, a ban on sprinkles on donuts, it’s just not
that big of deal,’” Lusk replied. “But I think the way you want to look
at that is to say that, you know, if the government can involve itself
in such small minutia decisions of our daily lives as to whether we want
to eat sprinkles or not, you know, that’s really not much respect for
the citizens’ choices.”“And if they’re willing to ban those small decisions, you know, what
kind of respect will they give citizens in the large decisions in lives
about where to work or where to live or some of the things that really
matter?” he continued. Morris went on to say that the government would also be banning
crackers, frozen pizza, popcorn, coffee creamers and canned frosting. “If you’re making some cookies once a year with your kids on the
holidays, that will be banned,” Morris remarked, wondering if the
government could have some “common sense” and make exceptions for tasty
foods. Lusk said that his children agreed that the policy was “just dumb.”“We should have kids running government,” Morris quipped................

Saturday, December 20, 2014

President
Obama’s move to normalize relations with Cuba on Wednesday sparked
fierce debate, but polling shows he’s on the right side of public
opinion.

Two polls released this year show a broad shift among
Cuban-Americans in Florida and Americans nationally in favor of
diplomatic relations with Cuba.

A Florida International University poll
of Cuban-Americans from June found that a strong majority — 68 percent —
favors reestablishing diplomatic relations with the island country, and
69 percent favor lifting travel restrictions.

The same poll from
2004 found that only 39 percent of Cuban-Americans favored
reestablishing diplomatic ties with Cuba, with 52 percent in opposition.
In 1993, the same poll found that 80 percent favored the policy of no
diplomatic ties with Cuba.

In addition, 52 percent of
Cuban-Americans now oppose the U.S. trade embargo, with 71 percent
saying it hasn’t worked. The same poll from 2004 found that strong
majority — 59 percent — in favor of continuing the trade restrictions.
In 1993, 85 percent favored tightening the embargo.The trends among Cuban-Americans in Florida mirror how voters nationally view U.S. policy toward Cuba.An Atlantic Council poll
from February found that 56 percent are in favor of normalizing
relations with Cuba, including 62 percent of Hispanics nationwide. That
support crossed both parties, with 60 percent of Democrats and 52
percent of Republicans favoring normalized relations.

Gallup’s polling from
the last 17 years shows a steady increase in American perceptions of
Cuba. While 57 percent still have a negative view of the country,
compared to 38 percent with a positive view, in 2006 those numbers stood
at 71 percent negative and 21 percent positive.

Still, the
politics of U.S.-Cuba relations are complicated. Sixty-three percent of
Cuban-Americans say the country should remain on the State Department’s
list of countries that sponsor terrorism, according to the university
poll.

And while President Obama has strong support from Hispanics
nationally, he failed to win the Cuban-American vote in both 2008 and
2012.

The university survey of 1,000 Cuban-Americans living in Miami-Dade County has a 3.1 percentage point margin of error.

The Atlantic Council poll of 1,024 U.S. adults was conducted Jan. 7-22 and has 3.1-point margin of error.

Online auction and shopping giant eBay is the latest tech company to
cut ties with the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council
(ALEC)."After our annual review of eBay Inc's memberships in
trade associations and third party organizations we've decided not to
renew our membership with American Legislative Exchange Council," the
company said in a statement on Friday.The move comes months after
other major tech companies began an exodus from the group, with some
citing ALEC’s resistance to climate change legislation.Ryan Canney, a
senior campaigner at Forecast the Facts — an environmental action group
that has been pressuring companies to ditch ALEC — called the move “a
major victory.”“Denying climate change has no place in the modern
economy, and this decision shows the credibility of eBay’s commitment
to climate change,” he added.

The move follows similar decisions from Google, Microsoft, Facebook,
Yelp and other companies, which have come under pressure to ditch the
organization over its conservative stance.ALEC offers draft
legislation for state lawmakers and lobbies them to support conservative
and market-friendly policies, which has earned it wide support from
many businesses.Those same policies have also earned it ire, however, especially from green groups pushing for new environmental protections.EBay
declined to say why it was leaving the group, but executive director
John Donahoe has previously opposed its stance on climate change and
other issues.“We only are with ALEC on one issue: Internet,”
Donahoe told activists earlier this year. “So, on climate change and
other things, we are not with them. We’re with many other organizations —
so, it’s that one small issue."The recent tech exodus was prompted by Google, after executive chairman Eric Schmidt accused the company of “literally lying” about climate change.“The
facts of climate change are not in question anymore,” he said during an
interview on NPR in September. "And so we should not be aligned with
such people.”Now that eBay has left the organization, Forecast
the Facts said that it was going to target AT&T, Verizon, FedEx and
UPS next to leave the organization.

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

The ruble collapsed by 10 percent against the U.S. dollar Monday
earning the Russian currency the dubious laurels of the world’s
worst-performing currency this year.The Russian currency has now fallen 49.3 percent against the
greenback since January, according to data from the Moscow Exchange. The
drop takes it below the Ukrainian hryvna, which has weakened 47.9
percent in 2014.Monday’s plunge was the largest single-day fall for the ruble since
the financial crisis of 1998 when Russia was forced to default on its
debt after exhausting its reserves in a fruitless bid to prop up the
currency.In evening trading Monday the ruble was worth 64.4 against the dollar
and 78.8 versus the euro. The currency earlier dropped past 100 rubles
to the British pound.Russian stocks followed the ruble downward with analysts at Bank of
America Merrill Lynch labeling the 10 percent decline for some shares
“local capitulation.”The dollar-denominated RTS Index, particularly vulnerable to ruble
weakness, fell 10.12 percent Monday to 718.32 points, its largest drop
since March when Russia moved to annex Ukraine’s southern Crimean
Peninsula.The ruble’s depreciation has gathered pace in recent days with the
currency shedding 15 percent versus the dollar in the last three days of
trading alone.The ruble has been under heightened pressure from falling oil prices —
with Brent crude now trading at almost $60 a barrel down from a June
high of $115 — but appeared Monday to decouple from its traditional link
to the oil price. Oil initially strengthened Monday, before reversing
gains after stock markets closed in Moscow.“The ruble today became detached from oil fundamentals,” Tom
Levinson, currency strategist at Sberbank CIB in Moscow, said in written
comments.“The problem is that there is no obvious 'end game' for investors to
grab hold of when it comes to a possible turnaround. Markets are pushing
at an open door,” he said.The Ghanian cedi and the Argentinian peso occupy the places above the
hryvna and the ruble at the bottom of the table of this year's
worst-performing currencies. The hryvna has been battered by a
full-blown recession in Ukraine exacerbated by a war in the east of the
country and the introduction of capital controls.Monday's moves by the ruble were “staggering,” said Timothy Ash, an
emerging markets analyst at Standard Bank, in a note to investors.Currency traders said that the Central Bank intervened on the market
to support the ruble Monday afternoon, according to the Reuters news
agency. In line with the regulator's approach since letting the ruble
free-float on Nov.10 however, the interventions were relatively small —
apparently designed to slow the currency's fall rather defend a certain
level."The policy response from the Russian authorities has been close to
non-existent," according to analyst Ash. “This is a really high-risk
strategy from the Central Bank.”Experts earlier warned that the Central Bank could stage a large
intervention on the market to punish traders betting on the ruble's
continued decline, but such expectations appear to be fading.There is an increasing conviction that “ruble bears will not be subject to any sudden bounce back,” said strategist Levinson.While Russia has spent over $70 billion defending the ruble this
year, it still has $420 of its foreign currency reserves left, according
to Central Bank data.Additional downward pressure on the ruble was generated by fears of
an increase in tensions between Moscow and the West after the passage
through the U.S. House of Congress at the weekend of a new bill that
could harden sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine crisis if signed
into law by President Barack Obama.The Ukraine Freedom Support Act would “be negative for market sentiment,” analysts at Sberbank CIB said in a note Monday.The speed and extent of the ruble's disintegration in recent days has
also raised fears that the Russian government could resort to more
extreme measures, including restrictions on the free flow of capital, in
order to restore stability to the market.“There is a growing sense that the currency crisis is spiraling out
of control,” London-based macroeconomic research company Capital
Economics said in an emailed report Monday.“Hard-liners inside the Kremlin are most likely to be making the case for capital controls.”

Monday, December 15, 2014

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) is calling all hands on deck to fix his
state's huge self-imposed budget crisis, which nearly cost him
re-election this year, and the staunch conservative is now receiving an
assist from an unlikely source: Obamacare.The state's well-documented budget troubles came after Brownback's
dramatic reductions in taxes since taking office in 2011. With its
revenue drying up and cash reserves depleted, Kansas is staring at a
$280 million hole in its $6.4 billion FY 2015 budget, which ends in
June.Brownback offered his proposal for closing that hole last week, a
mixture of spending cuts and transferring funds from other parts of the
budget to fill it. And second biggest of those
transfers is $55 million in revenue from a Medicaid drug rebate program
that was bolstered under the Affordable Care Act.The short version then is this: Obamacare is helping Kansas address
its fiscal crisis -- even if Brownback's administration seems loathe to
admit it.

"In the simple version, it would be like with your own bank account,
you are transferring money from your savings account to your checking
account," Duane Goossen, former Republican state legislator and state
budget director who now blogs independently, told TPM in a phone interview on Friday.The Kansas Health Institute first outlined
what was happening in a story last week. They noted that Kansas Budget
Director Shawn Sullivan didn't credit the federal law when explaining
why the state would be able to use that money to close the gap."The additional revenue from the rebates is the result of
higher-than-expected pharmacy utilization among the Kansas Medicaid
population and better pharmacy program administration by the MCOs in the
state,” Sullivan said, per KHI.When contacted by the news agency, a state health department
spokesperson initially told reporter Andy Marso that Obamacare "doesn't
have a role" in the $55 million that will help save the state's
finances. But the spokesperson later corrected themselves, saying they
"had gotten incorrect information about the ACA's role in the pharmacy
rebate program."The rebate program is complicated, but here is the gist, as it was
explained to TPM on Friday by George Washington University professor
Brian Bauen. Under the program, pharmaceutical companies pay rebates to
states and to the federal government, based on a percentage of their
sales to the Medicaid program that year.What the ACA did was allow Medicaid managed care (which is different
than traditional fee-for-service) to participate in the drug rebate
program. Kansas has recently reformed its Medicaid program to include
significantly more managed care, though a health department spokesperson
told TPM that the reforms had not been made because of the federal
health care law.Obamacare also increased the rebate rates, from 15.1 percent of the
average manufacturer price for most brand-name drugs to 23.1 percent,
and from 11 percent to 13 percent for generic drugs. The exact impact
can be hard to suss out, but according to Bauen's analysis of federal
data, Kansas saw an increase in rebates from $60 million in 2009 to $90
million in 2012.So while Brownback's administration seems to want to credit more drug
purchases and its own Medicaid reforms for the revenue that it is now
using to fill its budget hole, Obamacare would also have played a role,
as the health department spokesperson eventually acknowledged to KHI."Oh yeah, they definitely are saving money," Bauen said. The ACA "would have increased the revenue from rebates."There are no legal restrictions for what states can do with the
Medicaid rebate money, Bauen said. According to Goossen, it has
historically been used to help pay for the state's Medicaid program. But
desperate times, desperate measures.

Sunday, December 14, 2014

The Fox News morning show Fox & Friends edited a video
clip of Rev. Al Sharpton to make it seem that demonstrators had chanted
calls to kill police officers during his speech on Saturday, even though
the two pieces of video were from two different cities. “In Washington, the rally was held by the Rev. Al Sharpton, host of
MSNBC program — and there he is,” Fox News host Tucker Carlson as video
of Sharpton’s Saturday speech played. “Sharpton got up and explained,
‘We’re not against the police.’ This was his claim, listen.”At that point, Fox News showed a clip from a protest later that evening in Manhattan. “What do we want? Dead cops! When do we want it? Now!” the protesters reportedly shouted. The video then flipped back to Sharpton: “We’re not saying all police
are bad. We’re not even saying most are bad. We’re not anti-police, but
we’re anti-brutality. And the federal government must have a threshold
to protect that.”Fox News host Anna Kooiman pointed out after the clip aired that she
had accidentally gotten stuck in traffic because of the protests in New
York City, and never heard calls for violence against police. “But what they were doing was making this into a racial issue,”
Carlson opined. “What I don’t think this is about is race, I don’t think
these are examples of racism. And I think it’s totally unhelpful to
make this a conversation about white vs. black.” “And it’s ridiculous to have it led by Al Sharpton who has zero credibility at all, he’s a hustler, and I think a criminal.” Kooiman argued that instead of focusing on police violence and race
issues, protesters should be outraged over bad parents in the black
community. “Where is the same outrage about the destruction of the family, and
where are moms and dads in the household trying to raise kids right?”
she asked. “Where’s the outrage about that? Or where’s the outrage when a
police officer gets killed in the line of duty.”Co-host Clayton Morris agreed that Sharpton should be speaking to
protesters about the “real issue, which is the family breaking down.”“Because it’s too hard!” Carlson exclaimed. “It’s so much easier —
and you see the president of the United States doing this exact same
thing. It’s so much easier just to claim white racism is America’s
biggest problem.”“It takes the onus off you, you don’t have to do anything about
massive unemployment in the black community, about crime in the black
community, about the destruction of the black family,” Carlson
continued. “Those are the real issues. But you get to ignore them when
you blame it all on racism.”...............................

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

The Senate Intelligence Committee’s report
on the CIA’s extensive use of torture reveals that the agency regularly
misled the White House and Congress about the information it had
obtained from detainees and used techniques that are far more brutal
than it — or former Bush administration officials — had previously
acknowledged. For instance, President George W. Bush insisted that “[t]his government does not torture people”
and claimed that the intelligence it produced was instrumental to
preventing terrorism on American soil and capturing high-value targets,
including Osama bin Laden. But the Committee’s five year investigation —
and examination of more than six million CIA documents — reveals all of
those assertions to be false. For its part, the CIA acknowledged that it “did not always live up
to the high standards that we set for ourselves” and “made mistakes” in
how it ran the program, particularly “early on” when the CIA “was
unprepared and lacked the core competencies required.” However, it
insisted that “there are too many flaws for [this report] to stand as
the official record of the program” and strongly disputed “that the
agency’s assessments were willfully misrepresented in a calculated
effort to manipulate.” Republicans are similarly shielding
the agency from criticism, claiming that the report is “ideologically
motivated and distorted recounting of historical events.” “The fact that
the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation program developed significant
intelligence that helped us identify and capture important al-Qa’ida
terrorists, disrupt their ongoing plotting, and take down Usama Bin
Ladin is incontrovertible,” Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Saxby
Chambliss (R-GA), vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence, said in a statement. Below are just some of the most damning findings from the Committee’s report: 1. Torture did not lead the CIA to the courier who ultimately helped capture Osama bin Laden.“The most accurate information on Abu Ahmad al-Kuwaiti — facilitator
whose identification and tracking led to the identification of UBL’s
compound and the operation that resulted in UBL’s death — “obtained from
a CIA detainee was provided by a CIA detainee who had not yet been
subjected to the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques; and CIA
detainees who were subjected to the CIA’s enhanced interrogation
techniques withheld and fabricated information about Abu Ahmad
al-Kuwaiti.” [Page 379]2. CIA personnel objected to torture techniques, but were “instructed” by the CIA headquarters to continue.“The non-stop use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques was
disturbing to CIA personnel at DETENTION SITE GREEN. These CIA personnel
objected to the continued use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation
techniques against Abu Zubaydah, but were instructed by CIA Headquarters
to continue using the techniques…”Several on the team profoundly
affected.. .some to the point of tears and choking up. [Page 473]3. The two psychologists who helped the CIA create the torture techniques earned over $81 million.“In 2006, the value of the CIA’s base contract with the company
formed by the psychologists with all options exercised was in excess of
$180 million; the contractors received $81 million prior to the
contract’s termination in 2009. In 2007, the CIA provided a multi-year
indemnification agreement to protect the company and its employees from
legal liability arising out of the program. The CIA has since paid out
more than $1 million pursuant to the agreement.” [Page 11]4. Colin Powell was not briefed on CIA interrogation methods because he would “blow his stack”. “At the direction of the White House, the secretaries of state and
defense – both principals on the National Security Council – were not
briefed on program specifics until September 2003. An internal CIA email
from July 2003 noted that “… the WH [White House] is extremely
concerned [Secretary] Powell would blow his stack if he were to be
briefed on what’s been going on.” Deputy Secretary of State Armitage
complained that he and Secretary Powell were “cut out” of the National
Security Council coordination process.” [Page 7]5. The CIA used rectal feeding on detainees.“At least five CIA detainees were subjected to “rectal rehydration”
or rectal feeding without documented medical necessity. …Majid Khan’s
“lunch tray” consisting of hummus, pasta with sauce, nuts, and raisins
was “pureed” and rectally infused. [Page 4]6. CIA leadership refused to punish an officer who killed a detainee during torture session.“On two occasions in which the CIA inspector general identified
wrongdoing, accountability recommendations were overruled by senior CIA
leadership. In one instance, involving the death of a CIA detainee at
COBALT, CIA Headquarters decided not to take disciplinary action against
an officer involved because, at the time, CIA… In another instance
related to a wrongful detention, no action was taken against a CIA
officer because, “[t]he Director strongly believes that mistakes should
be expected in a business filled with uncertainty,” and “the Director
believes the scale tips decisively in favor of accepting mistakes that
over connect the dots against those that under connect them.” In neither
case was administrative action taken against CIA management personnel.”
[Page 14]7. The CIA tortured innocent people. “Of the 119 known detainees that were in CIA custody during the life
of the program, at least 26 were wrongfully held. Detainees often
remained in custody for months after the CIA determined they should not
have been detained….Other KSM [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] fabrications led
the CIA to capture and detain suspected terrorists who were later found
to be innocent.” [Page 485]8. The CIA held an “intellectually challenged man” to use as leverage against his family.“[A]n “intellectually challenged” man whose CIA detention was used
solely as leverage to get a family member to provide information, two
individuals who were intelligence sources for foreign liaison services
and were former CIA sources, and two individuals whom the CIA assessed
to be connected to al-Qa’ida based solely on information fabricated by a
CIA detainee subjected to the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques.”
[Page 12]9. The CIA intentionally mislead the media to “shape public opinion.”“The CIA’s Office of Public Affairs and senior CIA officials
coordinated to share classified information on the CIA’s Detention and
Interrogation Program to select members of the media to counter public
criticism, shape public opinion, and avoid potential congressional
action to restrict the CIA’s detention and interrogation authorities and
budget.” [Page 8]10. CIA officers threatened to kill and rape detainees’ mothers.“CIA officers also threatened at least three detainees with harm to
their families—to include threats to harm the children of a detainee,
threats to sexually abuse the mother of a detainee, and a threat to “cut
[a detainee's] mother’s throat.” [Page 4]11. The CIA dismissed information that wasn’t obtained through torture, even though it proved to be true.“KSM’s reporting during his first day in CIA custody included an
accurate description of a Pakistani/British operative, which was
dismissed as having been provided during the initial “‘throwaway’ stage”
of information collection when the CIA believed detainees provided
false or worthless information.’” [Page 82]12. CIA torture techniques included mock burials and use of insects.“(1) the attention grasp, (2) walling, (3) facial hold, (4) facial
slap, (5) cramped confinement, (6) wall standing, (7) stress positions,
(8) sleep deprivation, (9) waterboard, (10) use of diapers, (11) use of
insects, and (12) mock burial.” [Page 32]13. Some interrogators had previously admitted to sexual assault.“The Committee reviewed CIA records related to several CIA officers
and contractors involved in the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation
Program, most of whom conducted interrogations. The Committee identified
a number of personnel whose backgrounds include notable derogatory
information calling into question their eligibility for employment,
their access to classified information, and their participation in CIA
interrogation activities. In nearly all cases, the derogatory
information was known to the CIA prior to the assignment of the CIA
officers to the Detention and Interrogation Program. This group of
officers included individuals who, among other issues, had engaged in
inappropriate detainee interrogations, had workplace anger management
issues, and had reportedly admitted to sexual assault.” [Page 59]14. One interrogator played Russian roulette.“Among other abuses…had engaged in ‘Russian Roulette’ with a detainee.” [Page 424]15. The CIA tortured its own informants by accident.“In the spring of 2004, after two detainees were transferred to CIA
custody, CIA interrogators proposed, and CIA Headquarters approved,
using the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques on one of the two
detainees because it might cause the detainee to provide information
that could identify inconsistencies in the other detainee’s story. After
both detainees had spent approximately 24 hours shackled in the
standing sleep deprivation position, CIA Headquarters confirmed that the
detainees were former CIA sources. The two detainees had tried to
contact the CIA on multiple occasions prior to their detention to inform
the CIA of their activities and provide intelligence. [Page 133]16. The CIA tortured detainees in a dungeon.“Conditions at CIA detention sites were poor, and were especially
bleak early in the program. CIA detainees at the COBALT detention
facility were kept in complete darkness and constantly shackled in
isolated cells with loud noise or music and only a bucket to use for
human waste. Lack of heat at the facility likely contributed to the
death of a detainee. The chief of interrogations described COBALT as a
“dungeon.” Another seniorCIA officer stated that COBALT was itself an
enhanced interrogation technique.” [Page 4]17. The CIA spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the torture program.“CIA records indicate that the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation
Program cost well over $300 million in non-personnel costs. This
included funding for the CIA to construct and maintain detention
facilities, including two facilities costing nearly $X million that were
never used, in part due to host country political concerns. To
encourage governments to clandestinely host CIA detention sites, or to
increase support for existing sites, the CIA provided millions of
dollars in cash payments to foreign government officials.” [Page 16]

Tuesday, December 09, 2014

ANTLER, N.D. –As state
officials met in Bismarck to approve new oil conditioning standards and
to discuss the drop in crude oil prices, landowners from the Oil Patch
gathered at a separate meeting to review a different side of the Bakken
oil boom – spills, soil contamination and landowner rights.

Landowners
gathered in Antler, north of Minot near the U.S.-Canadian border, on
Tuesday and discussed with David Glatt, director of the state Department
of Health, how the state is working to limit harmful spills, improve
land reclamation and protect the rights of North Dakotans.

The
small group that gathered decided a meeting involving more of the
players in the game was needed, along with more in depth discussions and
explanations about policies.

Organized by state
Reps. Bob Hunskor, D-Newburg and Marvin Nelson, D-Rolla, the meeting was
also supposed to include the director of the state Department of
Mineral Resources Lynn Helms, but he was at the state Industrial
Commission meeting on oil conditioning in Bismarck.

The
state representatives, who have only a small voice in the
Republican-dominated state Legislature, said the meeting was meant to
improve communication between the landowners and the state agencies
regulating the oil industry.

Many of
the frustrations voiced during the meeting stemmed from the perception
that state officials have bowed to the interests of oil companies to the
detriment of landowners – a growing concern in the state.

“I’m disappointed with the governor,” landowner Pete Artz said. “I believe they let the flood of money take over.”

The
meeting comes two weeks after The New York Times published two
investigative stories that quantified the number of oil and saltwater
spills in the state and questioned the way the Industrial Commission
regulates an industry that it also promotes.

Those
stories also covered how the Industrial Commission commonly reduces
fines for companies that violate regulations, a practice Helms and Gov.
Jack Dalrymple said helps to foster cooperation between the oil
companies and the state.

Wednesday, December 03, 2014

When in late November the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee released a report finding
that there was no direct wrongdoing by Obama administration appointees
in the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, it seemed like the case
might finally be closed. After all, this was a panel controlled by a
Republicans.But that's not quite what happened.

Some of the loudest torch-and-pitchfork wielding Benghazi
investigation enthusiasts weren't satisfied. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said
on CNN he thought the report "is full of crap" and that the House
Intelligence Committee had done a "lousy job of policing their own." "I'm saying that anybody who has followed Benghazi at all knows that
the CIA deputy director did not come forward to tell Congress what role
he played in changing the talking points," Graham said. "And the only
way we knew he was involved is when he told a representative at the
White House, I'm going to do a hard review of this, a hard rewrite."Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) agreed, telling the Salt Lake Tribune that Graham "is probably right."And then on Monday, an op-ed by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) ran at Breitbart
which skeptically said "a Congressional Committee chaired by Rep. Mike
Rogers is telling us no one is responsible because there was no
intelligence failure to begin with." Paul's argument was that the House
Intelligence Committee's report omitted key details about Benghazi
thanks to the Obama administration. "The Obama Administration has tried to paint members of Congress who
ask these questions as somehow being extreme or crazy — and perhaps the
House Intelligence Committee will now follow suit."Fox News also published a piece arguing that the "widely-cited" House Intelligence report "cited by the mainstream media" lacked key details about Benghazi. These two arguments are at the core post-House Intelligence Committee
report findings skepticism. To skeptics, the findings by the
Republican-controlled Intelligence Committee clearly lacked key details
if the conclusion was that there was no wrongdoing and, the thinking
goes, that's probably thanks to the Obama administration. "It' s a conspiracy between House Republicans and the White House,"
American Enterprise Institute congressional scholar Norm Ornstein said
sarcastically to TPM.There's reason for these Republicans to be skeptical, Ornstein said. "Fox News, Talk Radio, plus all of the efforts by some of the members
inside like Lindsey Graham to suggest something really dark here,"
Ornstein said, adding "you have a whole lot of people predisposed —and
that's a mild term to use— to believe that the administration would do
horrible things and then conspire to cover them up. So any thing that
provides evidence to the contrary, after all of that buildup and hype,
is going to be rejected by people who don't want to believe it."In the case of Paul, there's also the fact that by criticizing the
handling of Benghazi, he can easily segue to criticizing Hillary Clinton
through an event that happened while she was secretary of State (which
he happily did in his Breitbart piece). "If you are a presidential candidate and you've got partisan base out
there that believes that Obama's a Kenyan socialist that's trying to
undermine American and work with our enemies, then you're going to gain
much by saying 'Benghazi really was worth nothing' but you will by
saying it all reinforces your worst fears about the president and his
administration," Ornstein said. The fact that a Republican-controlled committee released this report
is beside the point for skeptics, Harvard University political scientist
Theda Skocpol said. "Republicans know that most Americans know nothing about the details
of government or who produced this report. They are just continuing a
sound bite beat implying something dirty from Obama and Clinton about
Benghazi," Skocpol told TPM. "The real problem for them will come from
media reporters who do know this was. GOP report and may not want to
cover more hearings."There's also one other important fact to keep in mind. Ornstein noted
that other panels could release a report either confirming the House
Intelligence Committee's or contradicting it which would surely add
flame to the conspiracy fire. Ornstein noted there's the House Select
Committee on Benghazi and a few of the Republican-controlled committees
in the 114th Congress will likely look into Benghazi as well. "There's very little doubt in my mind that you're going to see
Benghazi investigations probably by John McCain and the Senate Armed
Services committee and you're going to see some pressure by Ron Johnson
on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations," Ornstein said.

Friday, November 21, 2014

WASHINGTON (AP) — A two-year investigation by the
Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee has found that the
CIA and the military acted properly in responding to the 2012 attack on a
U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, and asserted no wrongdoing
by Obama administration appointees.

Debunking a series of persistent allegations hinting at dark
conspiracies, the investigation determined that there was no
intelligence failure, no delay in sending a CIA rescue team, no missed
opportunity for a military rescue, and no evidence the CIA was covertly
shipping arms from Libya to Syria.In the immediate aftermath of the attack, intelligence about who
carried it out and why was contradictory, the report found. That led
Susan Rice, then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, to inaccurately
assert that the attack had evolved from a protest, when in fact there
had been no protest. But it was intelligence analysts, not political
appointees, who made the wrong call, the committee found. The report did
not conclude that Rice or any other government official acted in bad
faith or intentionally misled the American people.The House Intelligence Committee report was released with little
fanfare on the Friday before Thanksgiving week. Many of its findings
echo those of six previous investigations by various congressional
committees and a State Department panel. The eighth Benghazi
investigation is being carried out by a House Select Committee appointed
in May.The attacks in Benghazi killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens,
foreign service officer Sean Smith, and two CIA contractors, Tyrone S.
Woods and Glen Doherty. A Libyan extremist, Ahmed Abu Khatalla, is
facing trial on murder charges after he was captured in Libya and taken
to the U.S.In the aftermath of the attacks, Republicans criticized the Obama
administration and its then-secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton,
who is expected to run for president in 2016. People in and out of
government have alleged that a CIA response team was ordered to "stand
down" after the State Department compound came under attack, that a
military rescue was nixed, that officials intentionally downplayed the
role of al-Qaida figures in the attack, and that Stevens and the CIA
were involved in a secret operation to spirit weapons out of Libya and
into the hands of Syrian rebels. None of that is true, according to the
House Intelligence Committee report."We spent thousands of hours asking questions, poring over documents,
reviewing intelligence assessments, reading cables and emails, and held
a total of 20 committee events and hearings," said Rep. Mike Rogers,
R-Mich., the committee's chairman, and Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger of
Maryland, the ranking Democrat, in a joint statement."We conducted detailed interviews with senior intelligence officials
from Benghazi and Tripoli as well as eight security personnel on the
ground in Benghazi that night. Based on the testimony and the documents
we reviewed, we concluded that all the CIA officers in Benghazi were
heroes. Their actions saved lives," they said.Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat who serves on the
intelligence panel and the Benghazi select committee, said, "It's my
hope that this report will put to rest many of the questions that have
been asked and answered yet again, and that the Benghazi Select
Committee will accept these findings and instead focus its attention on
the State Department's progress in securing our facilities around the
world and standing up our fast response capabilities."Some of the harshest charges have been leveled at Rice, now Obama's
national security adviser, who represented the Obama administration on
Sunday talk shows the weekend after the attack. Rice repeated talking
points that wrongly described a protest over a video deemed offensive to
Muslims.But Rice's comments were based on faulty intelligence from multiple
agencies, according to the report. Analysts received 21 reports that a
protest occurred in Benghazi, the report said —14 from the Open Source
Center, which reviews news reports; one from the CIA; two from the
Defense Department; and four from the National Security Agency.In the years since, some participants in the attack have said they
were motivated by the video. The attackers were a mix of extremists and
hangers on, the investigation found."To this day," the report said, "significant intelligence gaps
regarding the identities, affiliations and motivations of the attackers
remain."

Medical marijuana advocate Tommy Chong on Wednesday told four Fox
News hosts their current obsession with an MIT economist over his
comments about President Barack Obama’s health care law was similar to
the network’s coverage of Benghazi. On Wednesday’s edition of Out Numbered, host Sandra Smith argued that the videos of Jonathan Gruber
saying that lawmakers relied on the “stupidity” of voters to pass
health care reform were relevant because “they’re not 6- and 8-years-old
to the American people.”“But to me, it’s just another attack on Obamacare from another angle,” Chong observed. “Sounds like Benghazi all over again.”“Well, no,” co-host Andrea Tantaros disagreed. “It’s an attack on the American people for how — quote — stupid — we are.”“Did I remember a guy named, what, Mitt Romney said something about 47 percent?” Chong asked. “Stay on topic, Tommy,” Tantaros demanded. “Is it okay to lie and get away with it?”“It’s called politics,” Chong explained. “Of course.”“I think it deserves to be asked — an open-ended question — why do
you think Jonathan Gruber said that this administration preyed on the
stupidity of the America people to pass this health care law?” Smith
wondered. “I think you have to define what stupidity means,” Chong replied. “If
you are opposing universal health care based on rumors and lies then
that is a stupid way to be.”A PunditFact analysis
published on Tuesday found that Fox News had mentioned Gruber at least
779 times since the story broke on Nov. 10. MSNBC had mentioned him 79
times, and he was referenced on CNN just 27 times....................................

Buffalo, NY — A high profile case of
Buffalo police killing a man’s dog while looking for non-existent drugs,
has led to a Freedom of Information request revealing some sadistic
figures.On June 3, 2013 Buffalo police raided a man’s home to look for crack cocaine. He was not there, nor was the crack.The home belonged to Iraqi war veteran, Adam Arroyo and his 2-year-old pit bull Cindy.Upon breaking down the door to Arroyo’s home, officers encountered
Cindy, who was barely 50 pounds, and shot and killed her. They were at
the wrong apartment. Sadly, “Police Kill Dog” is not an uncommon segment of headlines across the nation. It happens so often that it has its own category on the The Free Thought Project’s website as well as many other media outlets.This disturbing trend led to WGRZ-TV
in Buffalo, filing a Freedom of Information Act request for use of
force incidents within the Buffalo police department only. What they
found was shocking.According to use of force reports requested by WGRZ-TV under the
Freedom of Information Law, Buffalo Police shot 92 dogs from Jan. 1,
2011 through Sept. 2014. Seventy-three of those dogs died. Nineteen
survived.To provide a comparison, Buffalo’s numbers more than triple the
amount of dog shooting incidents involving police in Cincinnati, a
municipality of similar size.“The numbers are what the numbers are,” Buffalo Police Chief of
Detectives Dennis Richards said in an interview with WGRZ. “Certainly,
no officer takes any satisfaction in having to dispatch a dog.”Perhaps an even more disturbing reality is that nearly 30 percent of these dog shootings in Buffalo were carried out by one man. The unidentified officer has shot 26 dogs, killing 25 of them, in just the last three years.The New York City Police Department produces an annual discharge report,
publishing its most recent version in 2012. According to those reports,
the NYPD shot 72 dogs in 2011 and 2012, but fewer than 30 percent of
those cases (21) resulted in fatalities.That means that in the years 2011-2012 alone, this cop has killed as many dogs as the entire NYPD!Many of these dogs are shot during the execution of no-knock search
warrants, many of which are served in an attempt to stop people from
putting something in their own body which makes them happy.“It’s a small percentage of the number of total search warrants
executed or actions taken by police,” Richards said, downplaying this
mass killing. He then noted that the department has carried out 357
search warrant raids this year, most of which are in the relentless
pursuit of the state’s immoral war on drugs.Dogs are startled when something as simple as the doorbell is
pressed. Of course the smashing down of a door, coupled with the
screaming and noise of a half-dozen heavily armed men will cause a dog
to react in a negative way.When asked if the Buffalo police have undergone any special training
in regards to dealing with dogs, or the handling of dogs in a non-lethal
manner, Chief Richards said, “It has not come to that point in Buffalo
that we’ve implemented any of those other techniques.”Apparently killing a dog every other week in the department is just
dandy and they see no problem with it, or reason to seek out training to
deal with such a high rate of puppycide.Buffalo is hardly an isolated incident either. In Southwest Florida, the News-Press discovered 111 instances of dog shootings among multiple agencies between 2009 and 2012, representing about 37 per year. According to the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Police shot approximately 90 dogs per year between 2008 and 2013.Earlier this month we reported the story of a SWAT team responding a
dispute between two neighbors and then shooting a small dog as it ran away from them.Some of these officers really do seem to get a thrill out of shooting animals.Last month we broke the story of the sickening video uploaded to
facebook of a Cleburne Texas Police officer calling a small dog towards
him and then shooting it.Since the horrific incident in Cleburne they have actually taken
proactive measures to try and prevent further dog killings. The city of
Cleburne has enlisted the services of Jim Osorio, the author of “Surviving the Canine Encounter” and an instructor for Canine Encounters Law Enforcement Training, who will teach officers in Cleburne non-lethal methods for controlling dogs in the line of duty.Something has to be done, and at least Celburne is taking action.
However, the real action that would need to be taken would be to
drastically reduce the instance of no-knock search warrants. According
to an ACLU report 62 percent of SWAT raids are searches for drugs.If we want to end puppycide, we have to end the drug war, the two are not mutually exclusive.